When Travis Kelce made a surprise appearance on stage with girlfriend Taylor Swift during the Eras Tour in June, a bunch of phones started buzzing back home in Kansas City.
While the thousands of fans inside London’s Wembley Stadium were busy losing their minds, members of the Chiefs organization were finding out about their star tight end’s concert debut for the first time, according to The Athletic.
Chiefs general manager Brett Veach couldn’t help but sit back and marvel.
“He’s a showman,” Veach told the outlet in a story published Tuesday, August 20. “He has just a natural gift of being able to perform in front of people. Obviously, we get the most benefit when he’s doing it on Sundays.”
Veach continued, “It’s funny because when you see those clips with him on tour with Taylor, it looks as if he was a part of that show for months. But it was that one day, and he just looks natural. It’s a gift he has.”
The performance — which saw Kelce, 34, don a top hat and tuxedo while dancing and carrying Swift, also 34, across the stage during the Tortured Poets Department section of the setlist — immediately went viral in London, Kansas City and everywhere else in between.
“She found the perfect part of the show for me to come in,” Travis told his brother, Jason Kelce, on their “New Heights” podcast in July. “It’s such a fun, playful part of the show. It was the perfect time for me to go up there and just be a ham and have some fun and try to get everybody excited for the rest of the show. It was awesome.”
Travis continued, “That moment was pretty jarring. I was just like, ‘Oh s–t!’ You don’t realize how big that damn stage is. I didn’t disappoint Taylor. That’s all that really matters.”
A regular attendee of the tour, Travis pitched some ideas for the surprise appearance to Swift himself.
“I initially mentioned to Tay, I was like, ‘How funny would it be if I just rolled out on one of the bikes during the 1989 [section]?,’” he said on the podcast. “She started laughing, she was like, ‘Would you seriously be up for doing something like that?’ I was like, ‘What? I would love to do that, are you kidding me?’”
Travis further explained, “I’ve seen the show enough, might as well put me to work here. …There was no, like, bike in case I ran into somebody else or hit one of the dancers or anything. It was, like, the safest option.”
More recently, Travis has returned to his day job as one of the best tight ends in the NFL as the Chiefs began their quest for a historic third straight Super Bowl on September 5 against the Baltimore Ravens.